Imani: Faith -To believe with all our hearts in our God, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle
Here we are at final day of Kwanzaa and the first day of 2019. Wow! The world has changed considerably since Imani became a pillar of Kwanzaa. Every day, it seems, we’re confronted with evidence that such faith might be misplaced. Looking at the state of our communities, not even the “righteousness and victory of our struggle” is certain.
How do you have faith when confronted by the apparent apathy of God…a god who allows grand scale death and destruction with a single survivor hailed as a “miracle”?
How do you have faith in parents when grandma and grandpa are 29 and 30?
How do you have faith in incompetent teachers and corrupt leaders…in systems that consider knowledge and critical thinking a bad thing?
How do you have faith when we have an adult generation whose parents don’t even acknowledge the struggle and honestly believe they accomplished everything by themselves?
I do so wish I had answers. Some suggest we should only have faith in ourselves; but with our flawed reasoning and habitually bad decision making, that idea is dangerous at best. How about science? We could have faith in science…except science frequently tells us that what was true is no longer true, except when its kinda true. And money…a lot of us have faith in money…and it works…when we actually have money. Faith in jobs? Faith in government? Faith in the land?
So…what do you believe in…and how do you keep that faith in 2019?
The third to last paragraph really hit home with me. I know so many people who struggle with faith for that reason alone. I think this is a really thought-provoking post.